amsterdam
by cheadsearc
Summary: she met her angel in the city of sin :: percabeth :: one shot :: alphabet series


**-a-**

 ** _Amsterdam  
_** _Daughter  
_ [ **submission by:** _collapsar_ ]

By the morning I will have grown back  
I'll escape with him  
Show him all my skin  
Then I'll go  
I'll go home

Amsterdam

I'm a flying kite in the breeze just  
Restlessly seeking images a child needs to help them sleep  
I was thinking that I should see someone  
Just to find out that I'm alright

/

Annabeth first met Percy Jackson in Amsterdam.

She was on tour with her best friend's family, the Dares, who'd agreed for her to tag along with them on the two-month business trip.

She was almost eighteen. She had been accepted into Princeton and she couldn't have been happier.

At least, she thought so.

They were taking the bicycle tour through Amsterdam when she first saw him. Annabeth finally understood why the phrase _like riding a bike_ was used. She hadn't ridden a bicycle in almost a decade, but here she was, her hair whipping through the wind and her lungs full of cold, twilit air.

The houses looked like perfectly arranged matchboxes – like they would fall like dominoes if they were shook the wrong way. Annabeth was far ahead of Rachel, whizzing past the silvery water of the canals and the slow-moving tram, carrying people on their way home, laughing and talking in rapid Dutch that Annabeth couldn't even begin to comprehend.

She turned back for a moment, to catch a glimpse of Rachel's bright hair and tease her for being a tortoise.

And the next thing she knew, she had come to a jarring standstill, dizzy with pain and scraping her left knee as she fell to the ground.

She heard a small _Ow_ in front of her, and she blinked her eyes to shake out the haze of pain and focussed on the person she had collided with.

The first thing she noticed were his _eyes._

Call her the most clichéd being on earth. She didn't care. Because his eyes were so mesmerising and captivating that she _just couldn't stop staring._

She vaguely noticed that he must have said something, but she didn't hear it. All she saw was those beautiful sea green eyes, with flecks of blue mingled into it.

At least, until the stranger snapped his fingers in front of her face.

"You know, you could at least _apologize_ for crashing into me and almost breaking my _leg_ ," he said, scowling at her.

In any other circumstance, Annabeth would've definitely responded with a sarcastic, biting comment.

But she couldn't take her eyes off _his_ eyes.

"Did you hit your head or something when you fell?" he asked, waving a hand in front of her face.

No response.

"Annabeth, are you okay?" Rachel's concerned voice interrupted her daydream about _his_ eyes and the ocean and she finally teared her eyes away from him.

"Mm-hmm," Annabeth managed to hum, distractedly, trying _so hard_ not to look at him again. "Yeah I'm alright."

"Oh, good. You speak. I was beginning to think that you were dumb or something," the boy said irritably.

Now that she wasn't facing him, it was _so_ much easier to form a coherent, sarcastic response, "Because people are so _calm and cool_ after they get into a freak accident."

"Well, _I_ was."

"Of course, you certainly were." _Aha._ There it was – the sarcasm-drips-off-every-word-like-poison tone.

She heard no response from him. She risked a peek into his distracting blue-green eyes and bit her lip to hold her chuckle at his _extremely_ annoyed expression. She took in the rest of him – jet black hair, jet black jacket, jet-black Vans, jet black _everything_. He looked like a dark, beautiful demigod – like a sin you know you shouldn't indulge in, but you still do.

 _Beautiful._

The small crowd around them had dissipated, leaving only a concerned, confused Rachel, an amused Annabeth and an irritated, slightly-injured stranger behind.

Rachel finally broke the stalemate. "Annabeth, Mom and Dad told us to get to the hotel by eight. Come on, it's a quarter to eight now," she said, glancing between Annabeth and Stranger rapidly.

"Okay."

She turned to the stranger. "I am so sorry about this. I really didn't mean for the accident to happen," she told him sincerely, her grey eyes meeting his vibrant green ones. She saw them soften.

"I know. I am sorry for yelling at you, too. I get kinda annoyed too fast, sometimes," the stranger said, ruffling the long strands of his hair, sweeping them across his forehead. He looked like an American – the accent, the _New York_ inscribed on the bag he carried indicated that.

"Nah. It's alright. Being as clumsy as I am, it was bound to happen. I'm happy that I actually got off with some annoyed sarcastic remarks than rapid-fire Dutch profanities," she grinned at the boy who smiled back. ( _Gosh, Annabeth. Can you be any more obvious?_ ) She held out her hand. "I'm Annabeth Chase, by the way." _Yes. I can._

"Percy Jackson. Pleasure to _literally_ run into you," he said, smirking an oh-so-beautiful-but-devilish smirk. She swore that she could hear Rachel sigh beside her.

She didn't want to leave. She wanted to throw all caution to the wind, for once, stare into his sea-green eyes which reminded her of the ocean and listen to his deep, joking voice.

But she couldn't.

"Likewise, Percy Jackson." She righted her bicycle. "Well. We really must get going." She took one long last look at his beautiful eyes. "See you around."

He raised his hands in farewell and Annabeth and Rachel were about to walk their bikes past him when he caught her by the elbow and said, "Wait."

She raised her eyebrows.

"What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn't take a pretty girl's number?"

/

They fell in love pretty quickly.

Percy looked like the dark, brooding, handsome boy who sat in the back of your class.

But he was _so_ much more.

He was here with his Mom, who had grown up in the city. They lived in Amsterdam almost every summer. He attended Goode High School – _her_ school, but he was a year older than her. He was in college on a swimming scholarship (he was outraged that she didn't remember _him –_ the legendary swim captain of Goode High) and was studying Oceanography. He loved making cheesy jokes and making her laugh.

And then, he told Annabeth that he loved _her._

It was all so sudden. They were sitting in Sally's – Percy's mom's childhood home, lounging by the quaint, outdated TV which did not work and eating her heavenly blue cookies. (Percy had a thing for them.) Sally was not home, she'd left a few minutes after Annabeth arrived, because Percy had emptied the whole fridge. (Annabeth loved her, as much as she loved Percy.)

She had just made a crack at something or the other and was laughing so hard at her own joke that she didn't notice that Percy wasn't laughing with her.

"I love you," he said, almost whispered, staring at her. Her laughter died in an instant, cheeks still flushed and mouth still poised in a half-grin.

"What?" she whispered back. She had thought of this, many times, _hell_ she'd thought about how much she loved him every time she saw those beautiful green eyes gazing earnestly into her own.

But she didn't imagine how it would actually be when he told her he loved her.

It was _so, so wonderful._

She twisted in his lap and kissed him lovingly.

"I love you, too."

And when he kissed her like there was no tomorrow, on the dusty sofa in that small living room in Amsterdam, with her pressed against him tightly, she felt so, so free.

/

Three weeks later, Annabeth had to leave.

She traced her footsteps on the streets of the city, wandering aimlessly, thinking of a way to tell Percy this – they couldn't be together anymore.

The realization had hit her like a car crash. She was going to Princeton. He was going to New York. How could they ever be together?

She hoped Percy had realized this. She couldn't stand to see the heartbroken expression on his face otherwise.

She found herself pressing her forehead to the red door of Sally's home a few minutes later, desperately trying to hold in the tears that threatened to break their barrier.

He answered the door, his eyes lighting up when he realized it was her.

He kissed her on her forehead, warmly, sweetly, _lovingly_ and she couldn't hold it in anymore.

"P-p-percy," she sobbed, as he drew her into his warm embrace. "I-I-I'm l-leaving tomorrow."

"I know," he whispered.

"I'm going to Princeton," she told him, looking into his green eyes. She felt like she had seen a million emotions over the two months that they had been together. But none of them broke her like the one which was in them, now.

"I know."

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know." And he kissed her, the broken shards of his heart melting against hers. He murmured her name against her neck and she held him tight against her. She didn't want to let go

The sun was setting, faster than it ever did before. She did not want the day to end. She did not want to go home. Because she didn't even _know_ where her home was.

But maybe she did.

Maybe it was the boy sitting beside her – the boy who'd managed to make her fall in love with him within a month.

The boy who loved her endlessly, unconditionally.

The boy who deserved much better than someone who was going to up and leave, come morning light.

/

He came to see her off at the airport. Annabeth watched as he hugged Rachel goodbye and turned his sea-green orbs on her.

Somehow, that last stare, that last smile, that last kiss was more powerful than anything Annabeth had experienced.

She didn't want to say good bye.

So, she didn't.

Because it _wasn't_ goodbye.

Because a year later, when she was a little older, a little wiser, a little more in love with the boy with the sea-green eyes, she came back.

He looked the same. His hair was a little shorter, his smile a little dimmer (Annabeth ached, knowing that _she'd_ caused it) but it was _him._ Standing next to his mother, green eyes as vibrant as ever, with the same black jacket that she so loved to wear.

And when his eyes met hers, she knew she was home.


End file.
